A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by Animats on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @01:00PM (#15492575)

It still irks me that Google/Alphabet bought all those robotics companies and ran them into the ground. Not just Boston Dynamics. Schaft, the University of Tokyo spinoff, had some great technology. They had a good all-electric humanoid robot. Bot and Dolly had paying customers and Google cut them off. Some of the perception companies they bought may have provided technology useful for the self-driving cars.

(I used to be into legged locomotion. I hold a patent on slip control for legged running on rough terrain. You need active slip control to climb hills. It's from 1994; I was thinking toys, but getting the price down that low was hopeless. I was way too early. There's still no legged machine that makes money. John Deere bought the Timberjack hexapod logging machine, but killed it after four years.[1])

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pJwDZXasKU

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by drzaiusapelord on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @02:35PM (#15493488)

>and ran them into the ground.

They weren't doing too great at the time of purchase. I imagine this was another patent farm buyout and then sold, sans important patents, to someone else.

BD doesn't really have a product. There's nothing to sell. Even the military scoffs at these very noisy[1] and difficult to maintain robots, especially when they have a literal army of 18 year olds who don't mind carrying 40lbs packs into battle.

BD makes pretty demos and does good research but it can't be monetized, yet, if ever.

[1] https://qz.com/582991/the-us-marines-wont-be-using-googles-r...

Kyle Olson, a spokesperson for the Marines, told military.com on Dec. 22 that the noise the LS3’s gas-powered engine gave off was tactically rather unhelpful. “As Marines were using it, there was the challenge of seeing the potential possibility because of the limitations of the robot itself,” Olson said. “They took it as it was: a loud robot that’s going to give away their position.”

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by jlavine on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @04:18PM (#15494530)

Your comment is right, but it seems BD are still developing their robots to be more practical, and may eventually have something they could sell for use in the field.

BD have battery-powered robots much quieter than the gas-powered Big Dog: Handle (https://www.bostondynamics.com/handle), Spot (https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot), Atlas (https://www.bostondynamics.com/atlas)

Spot was mentioned in the article you linked to as being quieter but able to carry less weight and less autonomous than Big Dog.

The Marines are resuming limited testing with a version of Spot upgraded for greater autonomy in 2018: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/04/05/spots-back-mar...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by Animats on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @04:01PM (#15494373)

There was a subcontract from BD to some other company to develop a small, quiet Diesel powerplant, but not much came of that. Small Diesels are hard.

(The US military is all-Diesel. Gasoline tankers have no place on the modern battlefield, with few safe lines of communication. If somebody puts a bullet hole in a Diesel tanker, you slap a patch over the leak and go on.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by danbmil99 on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @04:21PM (#15494556)

Bah... Worked on a legged robot for a few years. Turns out there are billions of highly capable robots looking for work.

Want them to take on extremely risky work? Pay 'em a few dollars more.

The one killer app for human-capable robots? War.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by imposterer on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @01:39PM (#15492917)

Didn’t realize someone held a gun to the owners’ heads and forced them to sell.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by emiliobumachar on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @01:44PM (#15492962)

We can criticize behavior that makes the word a worse place, even when it's legal and arguably ethical, can't we?

Nobody is calling for jail time for all involved.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by imposterer on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @01:48PM (#15493004)

We can, but let’s not take away one side’s agency and responsibility. Google might’ve driven Boston Dynamics into the ground, but who sold the company to Google?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by antoniuschan99 on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @01:07PM (#15492629)

What if they did it on purpose to slow down the robot uprising >^<

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China by jandrese on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @03:03PM (#15493801)

The robot bodies are the very last step in the uprising. If they were serious about this they would be patenting the crap out of AI fundamentals and suing everybody working the in the field.

[ Parent | on HN ]